by Rob Lowe
Back at school, friends are trying out for the school’s tennis and baseball teams. Charlie Sheen has an absolute bazooka for an arm and wants to be a pro ballplayer. We are constantly in his backyard batting cage or playing “tennis ball baseball,” the Malibu version of stickball. Every once in a while his dad, Martin, will join us, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and completely crush a ball out of the park. He laughs at us and then, maddeningly, runs the bases backward. Charlie’s brother, Emilio, still wants to be an actor, and has taken their original family name, Estevez, to ensure he is not riding his dad’s coattails. Emilio is a few years older than me; he’s got a car and is really making the rounds, auditioning for tons of roles. Charlie and I (and often my brother Chad) still make the occasional 8 mm movie together, but now that I’ve been to the “bigs” I see little point in backyard movies. I’m a pro now; I’m moving forward—not backward.
My mom’s health has taken a turn for the worse. She is in bed most days, and even when she’s up and about, she remains in her pajamas. I hate seeing her like this, in the grips of something she can neither understand nor explain. Both she and Steve feel her bad spells are from reactions to everything from smog, perfume, household cleansers, mold, and food, to air-conditioning, paint, dust, water, and plastics. We finally replace our terrible Volvo and the new car sits outside the garage, all windows open for six weeks “outgasing” before Mom will enter the vehicle. She doesn’t use her oxygen mask and gardening gloves to ward off the “fumes” like she used to, but instead has become a sort of recluse. There are never dinner parties at our house. She and Steve do not entertain friends. They don’t go out to dinner or the movies. Mom remains a whip-smart conversationalist, a lover of books, and a loyal supporter of my brother and me, and from time to time she even surprises us with her former adventurous spirit. But mostly, she’s just checked out, and I miss her. To this day, I have a terrible, visceral reaction to a woman in pajamas.
When engaged, my mom is a fairly astute advisor, but she’s got two younger kids to worry about and she’s battling her own issues. Dad is two thousand miles away. So there is no “career planning.” There is no “Team Lowe,” full of lawyers, agents, publicists, personal trainers, and the like that would today assemble around a fifteen-year-old kid with a little bit of success under his belt. There’s just me.
Eventually, however, I’m “poached” from my little agency (where I was one of the few up-and-comers, despite my current status in the hospitality business) by a much larger, more sophisticated agency. That’s the way it works in show business (and in life); if you have some success, you often outgrow those who were there in the beginning, but you give them a shot to grow with you. If they can’t—or won’t—you move on.
My new representatives are able to get me my first movie auditions. Now I am competing with kids who have much more experience, most of whom are over eighteen and, by law, able to work full-time on the set without any child-labor restrictions. Like for a boxer moving up a weight class, the prize will be bigger, but I’m not sure I can compete. My first movie audition is for a film about the music business in the late 1950s called The Idolmaker. I don’t even make it past the first meeting.
My boss at the Nantucket Light is not impressed with the odd tourist asking for an autograph and eventually fires me for my ongoing penchant for pilfering the occasional mud pie. I protest that I’m hardly the only dessert thief in the busboy ranks, but to no avail. My spirits are lifted, however, when ABC signs me to a holding deal (which means that they will keep me “in house” until they figure out what to do with me). It’s not a ton of money, but it’s enough to buy my first car, which I do, on my sixteenth birthday, a white Mazda 626.
It’s a lifesaver on the one hand—now I don’t take the bus for two and a half hours every day to school—and a curse on the other, as Mom has me driving my little brother Micah to and from kindergarten. It’s hard to look cool in your new car with your six-year-old brother in the backseat. I am also delegated to grocery store duty, which I hate with a passion. I stagger around the Mayfair Market for hours trying to find all the obscure items on my mother’s list. But it still beats pulling the weeds out of our gravel front yard by hand.
Each day at lunch, I check the bulletin board just off the Quad to see if my agents have an audition for me. Finally I do land my next job. It’s a test show or pilot for a possible new TV series on ABC called Thrills and Chills. It’s about a family of animal trainers, acrobats, and daredevils that form their own traveling circus. I play the young, crazy motorcycle jumper—think a teen Evel Knievel in spandex.
The first day on the set, the director, Ron Howard, who was at that point still playing Richie Cunningham on Happy Days, takes me aside. He’s only directed once before, a low-budget B-movie called Grand Theft Auto, and he seems as nervous as I am.
“Rob, I need you to really tear out on the bike after your last line. I mean as fast as you can, really crank it,” he asks.
I’m cooking like a sausage in my skintight purple spandex, but with this request my blood runs cold. Clearly no one has told him that I can’t ride a motorcycle (I only just learned how to drive a car!), let alone “really crank it.” I always assumed a stunt double would do the motorcycle work. I break the news to Ron with as much dignity as I can muster. In a mark of what a great director he will become, he just smiles, reassures me, and figures out another way to shoot the scene. I say my last line, something like, “Let me show you what this baby can do! Outta my way!” and two elderly crew members hiding just off camera attempt to roll me out of the frame. It seems to take forever.
Thrills and Chills never made it on the air. (It never made it onto Ron Howard’s filmography, either.) To my knowledge, the producers didn’t even bother to show it to anyone. I’ve certainly never seen it. Although he’s always gracious when we meet and is one of my favorite directors, I’ve never worked again for Ron Howard.
* * *
In a way, ABC’s Afterschool Specials were ahead of their time. They could definitely be cheesy, but they dealt with taboo issues like drug addiction, anorexia, and teen pregnancy. And they got great ratings. For a brief and shining moment, I was the King of the Afterschool Special. I did a number of them under my ABC contract, the best being “Schoolboy Father.” In it, I had a baby out of wedlock with the tortured and ill-fated young actress Dana Plato, from Diff’rent Strokes. I think it won some sort of Daytime Emmy Award, although honestly I’m not sure. I’ve long since dropped it from my résumé, mainly because I don’t want to be reminded of my David Cassidy hairdo.
A night I will never forget: watching “Schoolboy Father” with my then would-be girlfriend’s father. My romance with Corrie had fizzled out. I had set my sights on a stunning doe-eyed brunette named Jennifer whom I had met along the beach at the Malibu Colony. My lack of mojo with girls has been fairly well documented in the previous pages, but with some early acting successes and a driver’s license to boot, I had upped my game. Nonetheless, I was intimidated. Jennifer attended an elite private school and her mom, Dyan Cannon, starred with Warren Beatty in one of my all-time favorite movies, Heaven Can Wait. Warren Beatty was a hero of mine: funny, smart, romantic, and great in both comedy and drama. He was the real deal.
Jennifer had an on-again, off-again boyfriend who was something of a tough-guy idiot. He was just the latest in a string of guys who never cut me any slack, so when he lipped off to Jennifer one day at the Malibu Colony beach, I lit him up, yelling, “Why don’t you shut the fuck up and leave her alone.” The next thing I knew, we were rolling around on the ground and people were pulling us apart. Jennifer must have appreciated the chivalry because when, a few days later, I gathered up my nerve and asked her out, she said yes. (It was like a plot from one of my Afterschool Specials!) “Schoolboy Father” was going to air the following week, and Jennifer suggested that I come to her dad’s house in Beverly Hills so that we could watch it together. I was hoping for Dyan Cannon’s house, but whatever.
It’s the first time I drive on my own from Malibu into L.A. The Pacific Coast Highway is always a potential death trap, and as I transition up Sunset Boulevard, I feel a surge of accomplishment. When I make it to Beverly Hills, I look for the prettiest yard I can find, pull over, steal some flowers, and make my way up the winding road to the top of Benedict Canyon to Jennifer’s father’s house.
Cary Grant greets me at the front door in a white terry cloth bathrobe. I have a vague awareness that Jen’s father is an old-time movie actor, but I’m ashamed to say that I knew more about “Cary Granite” from The Flintstones than Cary Grant the Film Icon. In my defense, he hadn’t made a movie since I was an infant.
“Hell-o, young maaan. Jenn-i-fer is in her room. Would you like some milk?” he says in his Cary Grant voice. He leads me through a stunning white-on-white modern home with breathtaking views of the city.
“Are you in Jenn-i-fer’s graa-ade?” he asks.
“No, sir. I go to Samohi.”
“Aaaah, well. I see,” he says, as if making some sort of calculation.
We walk into an all black-and-white kitchen, with industrial stainless steel appliances. He grabs two glasses and moves to the single best design feature ever put in a home—a restaurant-style milk dispenser protruding from the front of a gigantic refrigerator. I want to stick my face under it.
“Here you go, young maaan,” he says, filling our cups.
Later, he and Jennifer introduce me to the wonders of shepherd’s pie, handmade by Cary’s beautiful young wife, Barbara. It instantly becomes one of my favorite dishes. To this day, I’ve never had better.
Cary and Barbara leave Jennifer and me in private. We talk about our schools and people we know and we laugh, but there is not going to be anything romantic between us. It feels more like a friendship. Soon, it’s time for my show to air, so we head to the biggest TV in the house, the one in Cary’s bedroom. Jennifer and I sit at the foot of the big bed. I’m still not used to seeing myself on TV and I’m nervous.
Just as the show begins, Cary pops his head in. “Young maaan, would you mind if I watched with you?”
“Not at all,” I say, proving unequivocally that ignorance is bliss. And so, the single greatest movie star of all time takes a seat with us to watch a sixteen-year-old rookie in his first starring role.
When the show is over, I’m not quite sure what to think. (This sort of reaction continues; only rarely do I know right away how I feel about a finished project.) In Cary Grant’s bedroom, as the credits roll, no one says a word. Then, finally, from Cary, “Young maaan, you’re quite goood. You remind me very much of a young Warren Beatty.”
Driving away, down his long, winding driveway, I suddenly see him, running down the hill, chasing me in the big, white bathrobe. “Young maaan! Young maaan!” he calls, rushing up to my driver’s-side window.
“I thought you might like to have these!” he says, slightly out of breath. His arms are filled with products from Fabergé, where he sits on the board. He fills my car with boxes and boxes of Brut aftershave and soap on a rope.
“Thank you, Mr. Grant,” I say.
“Enjoy them,” he says behind those famous big, black glasses. “Good luck in the moo-vies. You’re going to do great.”
As I pull away I can still see him in my rearview mirror, standing in the long driveway and waving. I keep my soap on a rope (in the shape of a microphone) for years after.
* * *
When I learn that someone is doing a remake of the Warren Beatty–Natalie Wood classic, Splendor in the Grass, Cary Grant’s words ring in my ears and I feel I might have some sort of inside track. It will be a television event starring the biggest young actress on TV, Melissa Gilbert, the star of Little House on the Prairie, and every young actor wants the Warren part. I read for the legendary casting director Lynn Stalmaster. I think I rocked it, but by the time I’ve driven back to Malibu, my agents have called; I didn’t get the role. Jesus! I’m the right age, I’m the right look, and I had a great audition. I’m perfect for the part, but if I can’t even get out of the first round on this, what does that say about my future?
When I was in Ohio I could always go to work in a college production of a good play. But there aren’t those options available in Los Angeles. I want to act, not audition. I want to continue to learn my craft. But for now what I really need to learn is that there is very little rhyme or reason for who gets what in Hollywood. There are plenty of dedicated, talented actors destined for jobs they hate, chasing in vain a dream that will never come. Soon I’ll have to start thinking about college and possibly reconsider my life’s direction. I’ve had just enough success to keep me chasing the dream, but not enough to ensure a career. I promise myself I won’t be one of the deluded ones, being the last to know that my moment didn’t come, and that I should’ve hung it up long ago. I’m going to be seventeen soon. Am I already a has-been?
* * *
Luckily, I’ve made some great friends despite the time I’ve spent on my career. Jeff Abrams and I follow Magic Johnson’s arrival in L.A. and shoot hoops whenever we can. Jeff’s a huge Bjorn Borg fan, while I’m a Connors man, and we spend hours on the tennis court, attempting to learn the new “topspin” forehand. Along with Chris Steenolsen and Josh Kerns, we hang out and steal booze, go to beach parties and on road trips in Josh’s gigantic hand-painted “road beast”—a 1969 Impala. Good students and serious about school, we are hardly pro-level hellions, but we have some fun. Also in our orbit are the Sheen brothers and the Penns. Chris is still making “Nam” movies and Sean is more of an enigma; he’s older, into surfing and getting serious about acting himself. In history class I bond with a hilarious, madrigal-singing maniac named Robert Downey Jr. No one is funnier or more brilliant at stream of consciousness banter. Charlie Sheen is also one of a kind. While his brother is serious and always has his eye on the ball, Charlie, a Polo preppy clotheshorse in a world of O.P. shorts and surf T-shirts, is a wonderful mix of nerd (he’s a member of the AV club and won’t go near the ocean) and rebel (always ready to ditch class to go to the Dodgers game to root for our beloved Reds). He is also a conspiracy-theory freak, who sometimes wears a bulletproof vest under his clothes to school, and together we debate everything from the likelihood that the moon is hollow and whether the trilateral commission killed JFK to the authenticity of the moon landings. Also, coming from Hollywood royalty, he has all the toys you can imagine. At my house we are still saving money by not buying desserts; at Charlie’s house, it’s never-ending Häagen-Dazs, brand-new BMWs, a lagoon pool with underwater tunnels, and a lit, professional-grade basketball half-court. I sometimes feel like a bit of an Ohio rube with no toys of my own and no access (like Dodgers season tickets) to offer my friends in return for their generosity. No one seems to care or notice except me.
Apparently there is an amazing part in an upcoming movie that Robert Redford is directing. Emilio is preparing for his audition. I hear the mysterious Sean Penn is also gung-ho about the part. They say the role of Connor in Ordinary People is the kind of role that changes your life. When I don’t even get a meeting on the project, I’m devastated. At a time when all my friends are choosing which colleges to apply to, or finding an easier path in the business than I am, I’m wondering if Hollywood saw what it needed from me and decided I wasn’t up to a career of substance or longevity. For the first time since I was an eight-year-old, I start thinking about finding something else to do with my life. Luckily, I’ve applied to UCLA and USC and have been accepted to both.
A kid named Timothy Hutton gets the Redford movie and it does change his life. He goes from unknown to Academy Award winner in nine months, with one shattering performance. Some of my other peers/competitors are also doing well. Sean Penn is filming a surf high school movie called Fast Times at Ridgemont High and then will team up with Tim Hutton for Taps. I am unable to get a meeting on either film. Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel and be grateful for the amazing adventure I’ve had.
I call my agents to tell them that I’ll be enrolling in either USC or UCLA and will be unavailable for any further acting roles. They are disappointed, but understand. When I hang up I feel the loss of all the possibilities I had hoped would come my way. I’d thought that if I worked hard enough and believed hard enough, I could will myself into the life I had wanted for so long. I was wrong. And so I join the ranks of all the other confused, scared seventeen-year-olds standing on the brink of adulthood, looking into the hazy distance for a navigable road to the future.
Then, just after Christmas 1982, my phone rings. My agents are calling with a question: “Do you want to give it one last shot? We’ve gotten you a reading. We think it could be a big movie. It’s called The Outsiders.”
CHAPTER 9
A vicious winter storm sends driving rain into the streets in front of Francis Ford Coppola’s personal movie empire, Zoetrope Studios. Thunder and lightning crackle as I hunker down in my Mazda, parked just outside the front gates. In my hand I have the five-page scene I will be reading. I have it memorized now; anyone would. This will be my fourth audition for The Outsiders. Originally I met with Janet Hirshenson, the casting director who was seeing every male actor in Hollywood between the ages of fifteen and thirty. She has been good to me in the past, and even though I have never gotten a job on her watch, she has brought me back whenever she felt I might be right for a part. After I made it past Janet, I read for the film’s producer, Fred Roos. Fred cast all of Francis Coppola’s early movies as well as George Lucas’s. Among the actors whom Fred Roos would discover were Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Keaton, and Al Pacino. He was intimidating as hell; his face betrayed absolutely no emotion. I didn’t know whether he loved or hated me, but he kept bringing me back.